Articles
LIFE4DOÑANA: development of on-demand decision support system for irrigation and fertiliser management to improve the efficiency of strawberry crops in the Doñana national park area
Article number
1425_13
Pages
93 – 100
Language
English
Abstract
LIFE4DOÑANA key objective is to demonstrate and foster the adoption of a new on-demand decision support system (DSS) for soil-based intensive agricultural cultivation in order to increase irrigation efficiency, reduce water extractions and reduce nutrient pollution.
The solution builds on an automatic DSS initially developed for soilless cultivation conditions that have been adapted to soil-based conditions and integrated with a modeling tool that compares water use with crop needs, following the FAO 56 methodology.
The result is a state-of-the-art tool, that combines monitoring and modeling whose predominance can be adjusted depending on production parameters (crop value and input costs, farm size and heterogeneity, etc.). The demonstration has been implemented in 6 commercial farms in the area of influence of the Doñana National Park (Andalusia, southern Spain), during two cropping seasons (21/22 and 22/23). The first year’s results show an improvement of 7.7% the water productivity compared with the current farmer practice, from 9.2 to 9.9 kg of class A fruit for each m3 of irrigation water used.
The results are highly variable among the farms as a consequence of specific farm conditions (i.e., irrigation water quality, fertilization practices); nevertheless, the DSS, in general, and the model, in particular, has shown great capacity to adapt to the different production contexts.
The solution builds on an automatic DSS initially developed for soilless cultivation conditions that have been adapted to soil-based conditions and integrated with a modeling tool that compares water use with crop needs, following the FAO 56 methodology.
The result is a state-of-the-art tool, that combines monitoring and modeling whose predominance can be adjusted depending on production parameters (crop value and input costs, farm size and heterogeneity, etc.). The demonstration has been implemented in 6 commercial farms in the area of influence of the Doñana National Park (Andalusia, southern Spain), during two cropping seasons (21/22 and 22/23). The first year’s results show an improvement of 7.7% the water productivity compared with the current farmer practice, from 9.2 to 9.9 kg of class A fruit for each m3 of irrigation water used.
The results are highly variable among the farms as a consequence of specific farm conditions (i.e., irrigation water quality, fertilization practices); nevertheless, the DSS, in general, and the model, in particular, has shown great capacity to adapt to the different production contexts.
Authors
C. Campillo, S. Millán, A. Martin, M. del Toro, D. Ribeiro, S. Guéry
Keywords
irrigation, strawberry, commercial farms, DSS, water productivity, efficient water use
Groups involved
- Division Plant-Environment Interactions in Field Systems
- Division Precision Horticulture and Engineering
- Working Group Modelling in Fruit Research and Orchard Management
- Working Group Modelling Plant Growth, Environmental Control, Greenhouse Environment
- Division Greenhouse and Indoor Production Horticulture
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